AMD has announced availability of the Athlon 220GE and Athlon 240GE processors it announced back in September. Based on the Zen microarchitecture and featuring built-in Radeon Vega graphics, these parts are priced well below $100 per unit, focusing on the mass market, and the new chips have a TDP of 35 W.

Coming on the heels of the Athlon 200GE chip introduced earlier this year, the new Athlon 220GE and Athlon 240GE processors increase the performance of AMD’s inexpensive CPUs and make the company’s sub-$100 desktop product line more complete. Just like the Athlon 200GE, the new 220GE and 240GE models integrate two SMT-enabled Zen cores operating at 3.4 and 3.5 GHz frequency (respectively), a Radeon Vega iGPU featuring 192 stream processors operating at 1 GHz, 1 MB L2 cache, 4 MB L3 cache, a dual-channel DDR4-2667 memory controller, and so on.

Higher clocks enable AMD’s new Athlon processors to better compete against Intel’s entry-level Celeron and Pentium processors for the market of cheap PCs that do not need a lot of compute horsepower yet benefit from a high integration as well as a low TDP.

The new Athlon 220GE and Athlon 240GE CPUs are drop-in compatible with motherboards based on AMD’s 300 and 400-series chipsets that support high-performance NVMe SSDs, USB 3.1 Gen 2 interface, 4Kp60 display output(s) and so forth. The same AM4 platforms are compatible with AMD’s higher-performance Ryzen processors, providing owners of the new Athlon-based systems an upgrade path to eight-core Ryzen 7 CPUs.

AMD's Retail Stack
AnandTech Zen Cores
w/HT
Base
Freq
Turbo
Freq
Vega
CUs
TDP MSRP
Ryzen 7 2700X Zen+ 8 / 16 3700 4300 - 105W $329
Ryzen 7 2700 Zen+ 8 / 16 3200 4100 - 65W $299
Ryzen 5 2600X Zen+ 6 / 12 3600 4200 - 95W $229
Ryzen 5 2600 Zen+ 6 / 12 3400 3900 - 65W $199
Ryzen 5 1500X* Zen 4 / 8 3500 3700 - 65W $159
Ryzen 5 2400G Zen 4 / 8 3600 3900 11 65W $169
Ryzen 3 1300X* Zen 4 / 4 3500 3700 - 65W $114
Ryzen 3 2200G Zen 4 / 4 3500 3700 8 65W $99
Athlon 240GE Zen 2 / 4 3500 - 3 35 W $75**
Athlon 220GE Zen 2 / 4 3400 - 3 35 W $65**
Athlon 200GE Zen 2 / 4 3200 - 3 35W $55
*The 2500X and 2300X have been released, but not at retail. We should have a review soon
** Retail listings of 220GE and 240GE expected 'soon'

Both new processors will be available for order from leading retailers shortly, AMD said. When it comes to pricing, the new Athlon 220GE (3.4 GHz) sits right above the model 200GE (3.2 GHz) with a $65 price tag. Meanwhile, the dual-core Athlon 240GE (3.5 GHz) costs $75, or $24 less than the quad-core Ryzen 3 2200G, which offers significantly more compute and graphics horsepower.

Athlons at Retail
AnandTech Athlon 200GE Athlon 220GE Athlon 240GE Ryzen 3 2200G
Scan £49.99 £59.99 £69.98 £89.99
*This list will grow as listings appear online

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Source: AMD

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  • Death666Angel - Friday, December 21, 2018 - link

    Not really sure all three are needed. Part of what I like about AMDs portfolio with the Ryzen launch is the simplicity. Not one SKU every 100 MHz and 1 core increments (exaggerated).
  • MrSpadge - Friday, December 21, 2018 - link

    Yeah, they could have left out the 220GE or differentiated more with the GPU, assuming the dies would allow different configs (not sure they use Raven Ridge for this or a smaller one).
  • StevoLincolnite - Saturday, December 22, 2018 - link

    Yeah. Only needed the 200GE. 2 Cores/4 threads @ 3.2ghz and Vega 3 graphics.

    They could have ditched the other two... And had the 240GE as a 3 Cores/6 Threads @ 3.2ghz with Vega 3 graphics @ 1.25ghz or something.

    At the end of the day... There is a pretty sizable performance gap between the 200GE and 2200G... And not a very large price gap, making the 220GE/240GE parts essentially a waste of time.
  • compvter - Wednesday, December 26, 2018 - link

    I somewhat disagree, especially with 240GE. That is basically best 35W TDP CPU for AM4 socket. 2200G is 65W chip, and when you go to that route you limit your self out of the smallest itx cases. 200GE is the chip for those who want absolutely cheapest build on Ryzen platform. I guess 220GE:s existence could be brought into question with less than 5% CPU performance difference to either way (assuming linear performance), but personally I think 220GE and 240GE have their place.
  • compvter - Wednesday, December 26, 2018 - link

    uh meant 200GE and 240GE
  • 0ldman79 - Thursday, January 3, 2019 - link

    Agreed.

    Low TDP semi-powerful CPUs still have a place.

    Though you could always underclock/undervolt a Ryzen 3 to those power levels and almost guarantee better performance.

    I can bump down my Skylake i5 mobile using Windows power management or Intel Extreme utility and match the 10w power cap of the low end CPUs and outperform them by quite a bit.
  • hojnikb - Saturday, December 22, 2018 - link

    Athlon uses the same raven ridge die as the rest of the lineup. Banded Kestrel would somewhat fit the bill for athlon (minus the dual channel support) being the same setup and smaller die, but i haven't seen those just yet.
  • hojnikb - Saturday, December 22, 2018 - link

    They are price fillers. Something has to sit between 55$ 200GE and 99$ 2200G.
  • Oxford Guy - Friday, December 28, 2018 - link

    AMD is trying to increase margin, which means increasing shenanigans.

    An overabundance of models is one of those. Nvidia is going to have six different GPUs with the same name. Have an overabundance of models and obscure the differences.
  • yeeeeman - Friday, December 21, 2018 - link

    They need to leave only one CPU and that is the 240GE at 70$ unlocked.

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